Colin Dwyer

It was to be a "day long celebration of the dough, cheese, tasty sauces and delicious toppings." It was to be a gala of gooey mozzarella, a tribute to toppings every stripe and style — heck, it was even supposed to be an ambitious attempt to finally "settle the NYC styled Pizza against Chicago Deep Dish pizza wars!"

Equifax, an international credit reporting agency, has announced that a cybersecurity breach exposed the personal information of 143 million U.S. consumers. In a statement released Thursday, the Atlanta-based agency acknowledged that "criminals exploited a U.S. website application vulnerability to gain access to certain files."

Humans the world over have devised varied ways to note the opinions of a group. Want to cast a vote? Take your pick between ballots, raised hands or inked fingers — heck, just shout "aye" if you can't be bothered to move.

For all our electoral ingenuity, there is one method we can be reasonably sure no one's tried yet: sneezing.

Nearly one month since Danish inventor Peter Madsen returned to Copenhagen, rescued alone from his sunken homemade submarine, he appeared in court to explain the death and gruesome burial of the reporter who had been with him when he set out.

By all accounts, Hurricane Irma is a behemoth, a "potentially catastrophic" storm bearing 185-mph winds and the threat of devastation for the islands caught in its northwesterly course toward Florida. That threat packed an added wallop Wednesday for Puerto Rico, a U.S. territory already reeling from billions in debt.

In a span of less than two weeks, rampant violence has driven nearly 125,000 members of a Muslim ethnic minority from their homeland. And as the Rohingya cross the border from Myanmar into Bangladesh, they have borne little but the clothes on their backs and their brutal stories of the systematic rape, murder and arson they escaped.

The Houston Rockets announced Tuesday the franchise has been sold to a local and longtime fan, Tilman Fertitta. The billionaire businessman, sole owner of the Landry's restaurant empire and Golden Nugget Casinos and Hotels, now becomes sole owner of the Rockets as well — pending approval from the NBA's Board of Governors.

When state security forces entered the western Myanmar village of Chut Pyin in the midafternoon Sunday, they weren't alone. According to the survivors who spoke with Fortify Rights, an international aid group, armed residents of a nearby village mingled with the troops — but they both had a common target.

David Clarke Jr., a prominent supporter of President Trump's, drew an end to his controversial tenure as Milwaukee County sheriff Thursday, submitting his resignation to the county clerk in a letter that consisted of a single sentence.

Mark well its concentric circles crowded with golden text, its deep blue background, its central scene busy with contrasting colors. Then, reflect on this crucial question: Would you even be able to tell the difference if it were flying upside-down?

Apparently state lawmakers couldn't. In fact, for a span of 10 days earlier this year, not a single visitor to the Nebraska Capitol noticed that the flag had been hoisted upside down — not even state Sen. Burke Harr, who related the story in January.

The U.S. State Department has ordered Russia to shutter its consulate general in San Francisco as well as an annex building in New York City and one in Washington, D.C.

The decision was made "in the spirit of parity," the department said in a statement Thursday, indicating it was a direct response to the Kremlin's decision last month to force the expulsion of 755 U.S. diplomats and staff.

Nearly a decade after the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, a special court in Pakistan has handed down a verdict addressing the two-time prime minister's killing. The anti-terrorism court sentenced two ex-police officers to prison, acquitted five suspected Islamist militants and labeled former Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf a fugitive for failing to appear in court.

It's a pair of rites we see often at the passing of great authors: first, the tributes from those who loved their books; then, the good-faith effort to find their unfinished works and shepherd them to the bookshelves they never would have found otherwise.

It was a lovely late summer afternoon at a beach in southern England. Sun, surf and not a cloud in the sky — until the strange "chemical haze" drifted in off the sea, that is. It was at that point the beachgoers found their eyes streaming tears and their throats growing sore, their gag reflex triggering as some began to vomit.

Then, the professionals in hazmat suits showed up.

More than a day later, authorities still aren't exactly sure what happened to people at Birling Gap beach on Sunday.

Just days into one of the biggest storms to hit the U.S. in decades, authorities have rescued thousands of people in Houston alone. And as floodwaters from Hurricane Harvey, now a tropical storm, continue to rise across southeast Texas and neighboring Louisiana, officials expect that still thousands more evacuees will need to be sheltered in the days to come.

For a little while Thursday, young adult literature had a new reigning New York Times best-seller. In the paper's list of most popular YA hardcover novels, a new face had toppled Angie Thomas' The Hate U Give from the perch it has occupied nearly half a year. By mid-afternoon, though, the order the YA world had known for weeks was restored.

The way the game between the Tigers and the New York Yankees opened, though, you'd be forgiven for having thought it was going to be just another dog-day matinee. The two teams exchanged a pair of runs in the early innings, but for the most part, it was shaping up to be a low-scoring, modest affair.

If Angelenos know one truth, it may well be this: There is absolutely no love lost between the University of Southern California and University of California, Los Angeles. In the classroom, on the football field, around campus — few places escape the pervasive sway of LA's great rivalry.

But this week, the battle has found a new theater: the proper spelling of Shakespear(e).

The U.S. State Department has released an updated travel advisory for Mexico, expanding its warnings specifically about the regions that are home to some of the country's most popular tourist destinations.

The agency cautioned U.S. citizens that homicide rates are on the rise in areas such as the states of Quintana Roo, which includes Cancun, and Baja California Sur, which is home to Los Cabos.

Danish police have identified remains that washed ashore in Copenhagen as those of Kim Wall, the Swedish journalist who died aboard inventor Peter Madsen's personal submarine earlier this month. Authorities announced Wednesday that they had matched Wall's DNA with a female torso, which was found without a head, legs or arms.

German police stopped a vehicle Saturday night, only to find the father and son inside allegedly hauling a heap of ecstasy. The roughly 5,000 pills packed in a handful of bags had a street value of nearly $46,000, according to authorities in Osnabrück.

A big catch, to be sure — but that's not the weird part. When they took a closer look, they saw a familiar face staring back.

It was not until his late 20s that Vincent Doyle discovered that his dead godfather, a priest based in central Ireland, was in fact his biological father. And Doyle, a Catholic himself, says that startling discovery inspired in him an abiding mission: to offer support to other children of Roman Catholic priests, who are bound by a vow of celibacy — and to ensure the church supports them, too.

A Chilean court dealt abortion rights activists a landmark victory Monday, approving a controversial bill that rolled back parts of one of the world's strictest abortion bans.

The bill passed by lawmakers earlier this month — after a years-long campaign by President Michelle Bachelet — added three exceptions to a law that for nearly three decades outlawed abortion in all cases. By a narrow margin, lawmakers rendered abortion legal when the pregnancy results from rape, when the pregnancy endangers the mother's life and when the fetus is unviable.